Topic: Ouraline honeycomb pattern wine glasses

[Wynkin]

I have now found three distinct bowl shapes of these wine glasses.

They all have the letter T inscribed on the foot.

I have spoken to various French glass dealers and they say they are C1850, but none of them know the maker.

I attach photos of five I just acquired, along with another four of this shape bowl I already had.

The five have slightly bigger balls on the stem.

I will show the three types of bowl I have found if anyone is interested.

I would be very grateful for any information.

[flying free]

Hello and welcome to the board

Sorry for the delay in replying but I can't see your photographs very well.  I probably can't help with an identification, but better photographs might help someone else.
Could you post a picture of just one, against a white background so the actual pattern and shape can be seen clearly please?

many thanks
m

[Wynkin]

Sure, I will photograph just two as this site only allows tiny photos.

[Anne]

Hi and welcome to the board. Your photos can be up to 125kb in size, for which you should be able to make them around 700 pixels along the longest side, and then compress them. See out help topic to find out how to do this if you're not sure: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,34093.0.html - or ask for help and one of us will assist.

[Wynkin]

Thank you, I carefully adjusted the sizes but kept getting the same error message stopping my upload, which said 125kb limit, even though my collective photos were smaller in size.

I'll try again later.

Cordially, Wynkin.

[Wynkin]

This pic probably shows the 'honeycomb' pattern best and shows that while upright the glasses look fairly similar, they are very different.

One has a ball in the bowl.

It's not easy to see but they all have a carelessly marked T on the base.

[Wynkin]

Straight on. The one on the right has a ball in the bowl.

It's a maker I would like to find?

As I said earlier I have found three distinct bowl types. the one you see, a more cognac shaped and a flatter bottomed.

They are all ouraline (Vaseline glass) all obviously hand made. all have the same 'honeycomb' pattern and a roughly scored T on the bottom. Though it sometimes is so badly or quickly done that it looks like a Y or an L.

[chopin-liszt]

It is perfectly possible that the t-shaped mark you are seeing is just the way the glass was sheared off from the rod.
Is ouraline french for uranium? "Vaseline glass" is a purely american term. And I still haven't worked out if it has to contain opalescent glass as well as uranium. It's the opalescent glass in "vaseline glass" that gives the opaque vaseline-like appearance. The uranium gives rise to either yellow or green, but is clear.

[Wynkin]

Thank you for your kind reply.

The T shape looks as it was scratched on with a sharp point.

Ouraline is not the French word for uranium, confusingly there is a French leather wax called ouraline but it was only made from 1872 and glass made with uranium oxide, pitchblende or uraninite was made much earlier.

Ouraline is used in France to describe both yellow and green, clear uranium glass.

In France non-see through glass is called opaline and some is uranium glass.

(Photo attached of an 1865 Baccarat opaline uranium glass vase I found, it is pale green in natural light, it must have a lot of uranium oxide as it glows in a small amount of natural light).

It gets confusing as the English have adopted the term Vaseline glass to describe opalescent glass.

Uranium oxide gives yellow and green glass, but many other colours can also be found which are adulterated uranium glass.

Phew - I need a beer now!

[chopin-liszt]

Vaseline is a purely american term. (and a confusing one, we tend to avoid using it.  )
I have seen Uranium glass that is blue, turquoise, pink, and from bright canary yellow to a dull dark amber. It did get added to batches of other colours in small quantities, to give it a bit of a zing, before UV torches were invented.

There is often a t-shaped, slightly rough, scar left after a rod is removed. It happens when shears are used to cut the glass when still hot, rather than breaking off the pontil rod when the glass has cooled and leaving a broken scar.

Can you, (when you have finished your well-deserved beer) try to take a photo of the t-shaped mark?

If it is scratched into the glass, some talcum powder or cinnamon powder (for a dark contrast) rubbed over it will stick a little in the marks and bring it up for photography.

If the t-shape stands proud of the surface, as it would if it had been cut off with shears, the talc or cinnamon won't stick in any grooves.

I had wondered too, if Ouraline was a maker's name.    I really did not know what it meant.